Google Shares Tips for Attracting More Customers Online This Holiday Season

The holiday shopping season is responsible for generating a large percentage of the yearly profits for many businesses. A new infographic from Google wants to help you prepare your site and ads for the increased activity which will come your way as the season moves along.

According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), the holiday sales during November and December 2017 was up 5.5% with a total of $691.9 billion. The NFR is predicting the numbers for 2018 will be higher yet again, with a forecast that says the sales could hit $720.89 billion.

It is important to note the NRF came in short of its $678.75 billion to $682 billion forecast for 2017. So, the numbers could be much higher.

Online Ad Tips for the Holiday Season

For many small business owners who are now just as much online, or more, as they are with their brick and mortar presence, this infographic offers a wealth of information.

Google Insights

It is a given traffic is considerably higher during the holiday season. The numbers Google highlights are significant enough businesses should seriously consider making the necessary changes to optimize their sites.

How much is the increase? According to Google, it is 22.11% on Thanksgiving, 23.11% on Black Friday, 26.11% on Cyber Monday, 25.12% on Christmas, and 31.12 on New Year.

Prepare your Ads

Google says you should get ready for the holiday season by preparing your ads so you can get more from Google AdSense.

To do this you should use responsive ads so your ads look the same no matter what device people open them in. As Google points out, searchers hunt for gifts on multiple devices and without responsive ads, the long load times can result in high abandonment rates.

You can further get your ads ready and make the profitably using Ad Balance to show only the best performing ads. This will create more space for your holiday content.

Speaking of content, you should also create more holiday content to populate the space with Auto ads.

Last but not least, make your ads more viewable by placing them in different locations or sizes for your users. Once you have made these changes, it is time to attract more users to your site.

Attracting More Users

Attracting users to their site is one of the biggest challenges small business owners face. The competition is fierce, not only from local small businesses but also from other small and large retailers from around the world.

The infographic says you should offer searchers more choice. As an example, Google says mobile searches for “Stores like …” are up 60% in the last two years.

By figuring out what store your store is similar to and adding them to your keywords is one way to get more eyes on your site.

The next suggestion is to increase your mobile presence by creating a mobile site or app just for the holidays. With 64% of smartphone shoppers searching on their device to get ideas before they go to a store, this is a great way to get them walking through your front door.

Google also recommends trying video and knowing your audience better.

You can take a look at the rest of the suggestion from Google in the infographic below.